Pluralistic: Apple fucked us on right to repair (again) (22 Sept 2023)


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Apple’s Right-to-Repair U-Turn

Celebrate, but keep your eye on the prize

A picture of a disassembled Iphone from Ifixit’s “IPhone 12 Pro Max Teardown,” it is surmounted with the Apple “Think Different” wordmark; in the bottom corner, behind the Ifixit logo, is Admiral Ackbar from Star Wars with a speech bubble that reads “It’s a trap?”
Image: Ifixit, Apple, Lucasfilm

It’s been a pretty great week. Ever since Apple announced that it would sell its customers spare parts and tools to affect their own repairs, and supply them with the documentation to do so, I’ve been thrilled to do my comrades’ online victory laps. For a decade, I’ve fought alongside my pals in the Right to Repair movement against a coalition of the best-capitalized, most powerful multinational companies in the world, who used their incredible might to trample all other considerations: fairness, climate justice, safety, and security.

We introduced dozens of state right to repair bills — bills that set out the principle that when you buy a product, you should get to decide who fixes it — and watched as, time and again, a coalition of big business, led by Apple, used lies and scare-talk to convince lawmakers to vote the bills down.

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Pluralistic: 26 May 2021


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Pluralistic: 18 Jun 2020


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Pluralistic: 20 May 2020


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Pluralistic: 08 Mar 2020

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  1. EU airspace is full of empty planes: Flight slots are use-em-or-lose-em.
  2. European Right to Repair for phones is finally on the horizon: Will the EU finally defy Apple?
  3. Patagonia offers tutorials and supplies to fix your clothes: Companies that guarantee their products for life have different incentives.
  4. This day in history: 2005, 2015, 2019
  5. Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

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